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AZ shooting targets congresswoman, kills 6

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A gunman nearly unloaded a semiautomatic
weapon at a busy supermarket Saturday during a public gathering for
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wounding the Democrat and killing
Arizona's chief federal judge and five others in an attempted
assassination that left Americans questioning whether divisive
politics had pushed the suspect over the edge.

The shooting targeted Giffords and left the three-term
congresswoman in critical condition after a bullet passed through
her head. A shaken President Barack Obama called the attack "a
tragedy for our entire country."

Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly won
re-election in November against a tea party candidate who sought to
throw her from office over her support of the health care law.
Anger over her position became violent at times, with her Tucson
office vandalized after the House passed the overhaul last March
and someone showing up at a recent gathering with a weapon.

Police say the shooter was in custody, and was identified by
people familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22. U.S.
officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to release it publicly.

His motivation was not immediately known, but Pima County
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described him as mentally unstable and
possibly acting with an accomplice.

Vigil for shooting victimsJose Luis Magana/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dupnik said Giffords was among 13 people wounded in the melee
that killed six people - including 9-year-old Christina Greene,
30-year-old Gifford aide Gabe Zimmerman, and U.S. District Judge
John Roll. The 63-year-old judge had just stopped by to see his
friend Giffords after attending Mass.

Dupnik said the rampage ended
only after two people tackled the gunman. Also killed were
Dorthy Murray, 76, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, and
Phyllis Scheck, 79, investigators said.

The sheriff blamed the vitriolic political rhetoric that has
consumed the country, much of it occurring in Arizona.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the
vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the
government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this
country is getting to be outrageous," he said. "And
unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have
become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Gabrielle GiffordsSusan Walsh/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Giffords expressed similar concern, even before the shooting. In
an interview after her office was vandalized, she referred to the
animosity against her by conservatives, including Sarah Palin's
decision to list Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in
the midterm elections.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the
thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs
of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to
realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said
in an interview with MSNBC.

In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in
which she expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of
Giffords and the other victims.

During his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November,
Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged
supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to
shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who
served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear
holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

Judge John RollDennis Cook/ASSOCIATED PRESS

"I don't see the connection" between the fundraisers
featuring weapons and Saturday's shooting, said John Ellinwood,
Kelly's spokesman. "I don't know this person, we cannot find any
records that he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just
don't see the connection.

"Arizona is a state where people are firearms owners - this was
just a deranged individual."

Law enforcement officials said members of Congress reported 42
cases of threats or violence in the first three months of 2010,
nearly three times the 15 cases reported during the same period a
year earlier. Nearly all dealt with the health care bill, and
Giffords was among the targets.

The shooting cast a pall over the Capitol as politicians of all
stripes denounced the attack as a horrific. Capitol police asked
members of Congress to be more vigilant about security in the wake
of the shooting. Obama dispatched his FBI chief to Arizona.

Giffords, known as "Gabby," tweeted shortly before the
shooting, describing her "Congress on Your Corner" event: "My
1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me
know what is on your mind or tweet me later."

Giffords' Capitol officeSusan Walsh/ASSOCIATED PRESS

"It's not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always
does, listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors," Obama
said. "That is the essence of what our democracy is about."

Mark Kimball, a communications staffer for Giffords, described
the scene as "just complete chaos, people screaming, crying." The
gunman fired at Giffords and her district director and started
shooting indiscriminately at staffers and others standing in line
to talk to the congresswoman, Kimball said.

"He was not more than three or four feet from the congresswoman
and the district director," he said.

Doctors were optimistic about Giffords surviving as she was
responding to commands from doctors.

"With guarded optimism, I
hope she will survive, but this is a very devastating wound," said
Dr. Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general who lives in
Tucson.

Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said three Giffords staffers
were shot. One died, and the other two are expected to survive.
Gabe Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords'
director of community outreach, died.

Flowers for GiffordsChris Morrison/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Giffords had worked with Judge Roll in the past to line up funding to build a new courthouse in
Yuma, and Obama hailed him for his nearly 40 years of service.

An uncle of the 9-year-old girl told the Arizona Republic that a
neighbor was going to the event and invited her along because she
had just been elected to the student council and was interested in
government.

A former classmate described Loughner as a pot-smoking loner,
and the Army said he tried to enlist in December 2008 but was
rejected for reasons not disclosed.

Federal law enforcement officials were poring over versions of a
MySpace page that included a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message
published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to
"Please don't be mad at me."

In one of several Youtube videos, which featured text against a
dark background, Loughner described inventing a new U.S. currency
and complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in
Giffords' congressional district in Arizona.

"I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the
People," Loughner wrote. "Nearly all the people, who don't know
this accurate information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind
control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this
message wouldn't have happen (sic)."

Scene of shooting in TucsonChris Morrison/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In Loughner's middle-class neighborhood - about a five-minute
drive from the scene - sheriff's deputies had much of the street
blocked off. The neighborhood sits just off a bustling Tucson
street and is lined with desert landscaping and palm trees.

Neighbors said Loughner lived with his parents and kept to
himself. He was often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a
hooded sweat shirt and listening to his iPod.

Loughner's MySpace profile indicates he attended and graduated
from school in Tucson and had taken college classes. He did not say
if he was employed.

"We're getting out of here. We are freaked out," 33-year-old
David Cleveland, who lives a few doors down from Loughner's house,
told The Associated Press.

Cleveland said he was taking his wife and children, ages 5 and
7, to her parent's home when they heard about the shooting.

"When we heard about it, we just got sick to our stomachs," Cleveland said. "We just wanted to hold our kids tight."

High school classmate Grant Wiens, 22, said Loughner seemed to
be "floating through life" and "doing his own thing."

Arizona reactionChris Morrison/ASSOCIATED PRESS

"Sometimes religion was brought up or drugs. He smoked pot, I
don't know how regularly. And he wasn't too keen on religion, from
what I could tell," Wiens said.

Lynda Sorenson said she took a math class with Loughner last
summer at Pima Community College's Northwest campus and told the
Arizona Daily Star he was "obviously very disturbed." "He
disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," she said.

In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for
possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he
completed a diversion program, according to online records.

"He has kind of a troubled past, I can tell you that," Dupnik
said.

Giffords was first elected to Congress amid a wave of Democratic
victories in the 2006 election, and has been mentioned as a
possible Senate candidate in 2012 and a gubernatorial prospect in
2014.

She is married to astronaut Mark E. Kelly, who has piloted space
shuttles Endeavour and Discovery. The two met in China in 2003
while they were serving on a committee there, and were married in
January 2007. Sen. Bill Nelson, chairman of the Senate Commerce
Space and Science Subcommittee, said Kelly is training to be the
next commander of the space shuttle mission slated for April. His
brother is currently serving aboard the International Space
Station, Nelson said.

Giffords is known in her southern Arizona district for her
numerous public outreach meetings, which she acknowledged in an
October interview with The Associated Press can sometimes be
challenging.

"You know, the crazies on all sides, the people who come out,
the planet earth people," she said following an appearance
with Adm. Mike Mullen in which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff was peppered with bizarre questions from an audience member.